Israel’s US support base is narrowing.
Coming at Israel from different directions, US President Donald Trump, increasingly critical Evangelicals, until recently a rock-solid Israeli support base, and influential Make America Great Again torchbearers are chipping away at Israel’s standing.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump highlighted his changing attitude when discussing in the Oval Office with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at his side the sale of 48 F-35 fighter jets to Saudi Arabia.
Later, at a black-tie dinner in the White House, Mr. Trump declared Saudi Arabia “a major non-NATO ally,” a status already enjoyed by regional states Qatar, Bahrain, and Israel.
Potentially, the sale could alter the military balance in the Middle East and violate US law that obliges the United States to ensure that Israel maintains a “qualitative military edge” in the region, a pillar of the Jewish-majority state’s military posture.
“This is a great ally, and Israel is a great ally… They are both at the level where they should get top-of-the-line,” Mr. Trump said when asked whether Saudi Arabia would get as advanced a model of the F-35 as Israel has.
Israel is the only Middle Eastern country that operates F-35s, widely viewed as the world’s most advanced fighter jet.
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Mr. “Trump made it clear… He wasn’t going to waste his time on stopping all these weapons and items sales just because of (Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin) Netanyahu,” said Nawaf Obaid, a former Saudi government foreign policy and media advisor.
The question is what Mr. Trump will offer Mr. Netanyahu as compensation to preserve the fig leaf of maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge.
To be sure, the sale narrows but does not eliminate Israel’s military superiority.
“The Israeli Air Force’s planning and operational capabilities have no parallel in today’s Middle East… It will probably take time until they…manage to close the professional gap,” said journalist Amos Harel.
Even so, the sale is likely to put a similar deal with the United Arab Emirates back on the table.
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The UAE suspended talks on acquiring F-35s as part of the 2020 deal that saw the Gulf state establish diplomatic relations with Israel, alongside Bahrain and Morocco, because the US feared that China could gain access to the plane’s technologies.
The significance of sales to Saudi Arabia and the UAE goes beyond issues of the Middle East’s military balance of power. It binds the United States and Saudi Arabia in more than one way.
Saudi and Emirati investments in Africa’s critical mineral industry are of strategic importance to the United States, given China’s global domination of the sector. The production of F-35s depends on critical minerals.
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US defence industry’s dependency on rare earth elements. Credit: Williston Basin CORE-CM
“Critical minerals is…a key part of the discussion here in Washington,” said Middle East analyst Firas Maksad, noting that Saudi Arabia was preparing to become a major critical minerals processing hub.
Moreover, the sale will inevitably impact Chinese influence, given likely US demands that Saudi Arabia erect a Chinese wall between F-35 operations and digital infrastructure involving Chinese technology.
The US will want to see the wall isolate the F-35’s environment from for example, encrypted satellite communications, logistics platforms, and data centres.
Mr. Trump’s tinkering with the nature of US relations with Israel comes as messianic Evangelical support for Israel is on the decline. Not just in the United States, but also worldwide.
Gaza may be the catalyst for the shift.
Yet, mounting criticism of Israel and greater empathy for Palestinians, particularly among American Evangelicals aged 18 to 29, reflects a power shift in the global Evangelical community.
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“This train has left the station. It’s not coming back, especially with the younger generation,” said Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, an Evangelical conspiracy theorist, who during the Covid epidemic compared masks to the yellow Star of David Nazis forced Jews to wear. Ms. Taylor Greene later apologised for her comment.
Mr. Trump’s tinkering also comes as influential figures in the president’s Make America Great Again base have turned up the volume on criticism of US support for Israel and mainstreamed far-right anti-Semites such as 27-year-old neo-Nazi white supremacist and Christian nationalist Nick Fuentes and blatantly anti-Semitic podcaster Candace Owens.
The shift is compounded by the rise to prominence of non-Western Evangelicals, including Palestinians and Middle Eastern communities, who account for 70 per cent of the global Evangelical community, and may share a belief in End Times, but have not politicised it to make support for Israel a commandment.
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As a result, African states, which make up roughly 30 per cent of United Nations membership, favour, with few exceptions, the creation of an independent Palestinian state and reject Israeli annexation of territory conquered by Israel during the 1967 Middle East war, despite long-standing Israeli and American evangelist efforts to persuade them to be more supportive of Israel.
Pew Research predicted in 2015 that by 2050, sub-Saharan Africa would account for 38 per cent of the world’s Christian population. In 2019, the research group said that by 2060, six of the ten countries with the largest Christian populations will be in Africa.
For many American Evangelicals, the End Times involve the regathering of the Jews in the Promised Land at a time of persecution during the Tribulations. The Evangelicals believe that Jews who survive the persecution and recognise Jesus as their Messiah will be saved.
“Theological emphasis is shifting. We younger Evangelicals interpret the teachings of Jesus as emphasising compassion, peace, and justice for all, rather than a political alignment with a specific nation,” said a younger Evangelical activist.
The global power shift in the Evangelical community was on display last month when the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), which represents 600 million Evangelicals from 161 countries, last elected Sri Lankan activist Godfrey Yogarajah as chairman to replace Thomas Schirrmacher, a religious scholar with close ties to the German political establishment, at its general assembly in Seoul.
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Botros Mansour
Mr. Yogarajah has not spoken publicly about Israel or the Gaza war, but stressed that he would work closely with Botros Mansour, a Nazareth-born Israeli Palestinian lawyer with a history of mediating between Israeli Palestinian Christians and Messianic Jews.
The Alliance appointed Mr. Mansour its secretary general and CEO in August.
Assembly attendees said Mr. Yogarajah was signalling that the WEA would take a more even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than Mr. Schirrmacher’s more pro-Israel stance.
“It means something profound that, in this moment, a Palestinian Christian from Israel has been asked to serve as Secretary General”, Mr. Mansour said in his inaugural address.
In a similar vein, the European Baptist Federation (EBF) elected Lebanese Rev. Charles Costa as its new president in September. The EBF groups associations in Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia.
Even so, North American Evangelicals retain considerable influence in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
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That was evident last year when International Court of Justice (ICJ) Vice President Julia Sebutinde was the only member of the world’s highest judicial body to oppose all provisional measures it advocated in South Africa’s case, accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza.
“The Lord is counting on me to stand on the side of Israel,” Ms. Sebutinde said in August at the launch of a new Watoto Church Evangelical ministry in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. It was Ms Sebutinde’s first public comment on her opposition to the ICJ ruling.
Watoto Church was founded in 1984 by Zimbabwe-born fourth-generation Canadian missionary Gary Skinner.
The Ugandan government distanced itself from Ms. Sebutinde at the time of the ICJ ruling.
“The position taken by Judge Sebutinde is her own individual and independent opinion and does not in any way reflect the position of the government of the Republic of Uganda,” the government said in a statement.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.